BilltoMobile is expanding its direct carrier billing relationship with Verizon Wireless to process transactions from other payment platforms starting with mobile payment start-up Boku. The agreement allows Boku to tap into BilltoMobile’s direct billing gateway and will greatly expand the number of merchants and consumers who can use direct billing on Verizon. BilltoMobile’s deal with Boku is non-exclusive so BilltoMobile could also process transactions from Zong and other payments providers as well.
BilltoMobile last year secured the first U.S. carrier billing deal when it agreed with Verizon Wireless to process payments directly through the carrier’s billing system. The deal allows BilltoMobile to charge merchants significantly less in fees than premium SMS, which has been one of the primary ways that people charged their purchases to their phone. With direct billing, merchants can expect to pay fees in the mid-teens of a transaction cost, rather than the 50 percent they are charged for premium SMS. With lower fees, BilltoMobile allows merchants to offer carrier billing for a lower price, which can help spur on more impulse purchases of mostly digital goods.
Carrier billing is powerful because it’s easy and secure for consumers. They enter in their phone number when they want to buy something and then get a text message to approve their purchase. In a Nielsen survey last year, respondents said carrier billing is their preferred way of downloading apps, ahead of credit cards. Though carrier billing works primarily for digital goods, the potential is for the system to work for more physical items. Danal Co. of South Korea, the largest shareholder of BilltoMobile said it has processed $4 billion in payments with carrier billing with 20 percent of transactions in Korea for physical goods.
By opening up its payment system to other providers, BilltoMobile is able to leverage its existing integration with Verizon Wireless to process a whole lot more payments. BilltoMobile has relationships with a few dozen merchants. Boku, which uses a combination of direct carrier billing and premium SMS, deals with hundreds of merchants including Facebook, Electronic Arts and eBay Classifieds. For Boku and others, the arrangement allows it to connect to Verizon’s carrier billing system, which will give its merchants the ability to lower prices for consumers and be more flexible with their pricing.
The BilltoMobile deal provides more momentum for carrier billing in the U.S. Last October, AT&T announced trials of carrier billing with BilltoMobile, Boku and Zong. It’s likely Boku will also try to secure its own direct deals with Verizon and other carriers. But the integration work takes time. Working with BilltoMobile allows Boku and others to add carrier billing immediately.
This is one deal in what’s looking like a huge year for mobile payments. With Apple and Google gearing up on the near field communications front and PayPal going all in on mobile, we’re seeing some big players position themselves to get a piece of what could be a huge pie. We’ve reported that mobile payments, in all its forms, could be worth an estimated $633.4 billion by 2014. Carrier billing is one slice of the pie and is largely aimed at digital goods for now. Because of its higher fees compared to credit cards, it won’t be able to replace credit cards in many cases and is not as well positioned right now to tackle in-store point of sales transactions. But as it grows, and fees decrease, carrier billing could be an important way for consumers to pay for goods of all kinds in the future.
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Apple’s iPhone 4 did not give the company the bump in sales it needed to put Android’s momentum in check. Instead, Apple’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. dropped by 1.3 percent in the three months ended in July while Android’s share grew by an impressive five percentage points, reports ComScore.
Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) had been losing marketshare all year, but that was expected to change with the release of the iPhone 4. For the past few years, consumers have held off on buying a new iPhone at the beginning of the year, knowing that Apple historically releases a new device during the summer. The leak reported by Gizmodo only compounded the problem.
However, the late-June iPhone release was not what it cracked up to be. For the second straight comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) report, Android continued to gain marketshare while all other major platforms lost it. To be sure, things could still change over the next three months as the iPhone 4 is in market for longer and Apple’s antenna issues get further behind them, but right now, it doesn’t seem like Apple’s got anything good enough to slow down Android.
Here’s how marketshare has changed for the top smartphone platforms in the July vs. April period:
| Smartphone Platform | % Change of Subscribers | ||
| RIM | -1.8% | ||
| Apple | -1.3% | ||
| 5% | |||
| Microsoft | -2.2% | ||
| Palm | 0% |
The issue of marketshare or install base is one that is increasingly worrisome to analysts. In a research note released this morning by Bernstein Research analysts Toni Sacconagh and Pierre Ferragu, this is exactly their point of contention. Barron’s reports that the analysts strongly believe that if Apple expects to ward off Android, they need to add versions of the phone for the large carriers that don’t currently sell it.
Interestingly, it’s not because Android is more widely available. In fact, Android is only available on 59 carriers vs. 154 for iPhone, but the issue is that Apple lacks deals with some of the world’s largest wireless carriers—Verizon Wireless (VZ, VOD), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Germany, NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) and China Mobile.
The analysts suspect that Android’s install base could outnumber iPhone’s in as few as five quarters. According to comScore, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) still has a ways to go to topple both Apple and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) in the U.S. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 39.3 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 23.8 percent share, and Google’s share jumped to 17 percent.
One trend that has stayed constant over the past two comScore reports: While all the major smartphone platforms lost share to Android, most continue to gain overall subscribers as Americans increasingly buy smartphones. While that’s good news, in the past seven months, Android has painfully taken share away from all the other major players. Since December, RIM’s share has dropped 2.3 percent and Apple’s by 1.5 percent—Android has grown by an astonishing 12.2 percent.
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Square phones, man. Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t get it. Nokia did it with the Twist, LG did it with the LG Lotus and Lotus Elite, and now Motorola appears to be giving it a go — but unlike the rest of the lot, this one’s an Android-powered smartphone.
This handset — which, according to the gents at HDBlog.it is called the Flipout — is purportedly running Motorola’s BLUR UI on top of Android 2.1. If you’re running on a T-Mobile Cliq XT, Verizon Droid Devour, or AT&T Backflip, that’s a pretty good reason to get excited; BLUR and Android 2.1 haven’t been seeing playing nice together up until this point, so this suggests that Motorola might be able to push 2.1 out to these other handsets before too much longer. We hope. Maybe?
The specs, as they’re being whispered so far:
It’ll come in three colors when it launches in the US come June (according to the original sources) Besides that, it’s all a mystery. Carrier? No idea (though I’d guess AT&T, given only the design/color scheme shown here). Pricing? Who knows.
A survey on first-quarter 2010 smartphone sales by NDP Group found that Android-based phone sales edged past Apple to become the No. 2 system, with 28 percent, behind Research In Motion, which leads with 32 percent of the market. Apple's share was 21 percent of the market.
AT&T Leads The Pack
The survey also found that AT&T is responsible for the most devices in use, at 32 percent nearly neck and neck with Verizon Wireless' 30 percent. Trailing are T-Mobile with 17 percent and Sprint/Nextel with 15 percent.
With the addition of Palm's Pre and Pixi phones, AT&T is now the only carrier to feature plans on all five top operating systems: Apple's iPhone, Palm's webOS, Research in Motion's BlackBerry, Microsoft's Windows Phone Series 7 and -- with the new Motorola Backflip -- Google's Android.
"As in the past, carrier distribution and promotion have played a crucial role in determining smartphone market share," said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. "In order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to now include all of their smartphones."
An AdMob survey two weeks ago also found that Android phones are gaining ground, with 46 percent of the U.S. market, beating iPhone's 39 percent, while globally, iPhone reigns with 46 percent compared to 25 percent of Andoid phones.
The AdMob survey was based on impressions on 180,000 Web sites monitored by the mobile advertising firm, while NPD Group's research is based on 150,000 online monthly surveys of consumer users.
"The biggest single thing that Apple can...
3 UK has just launched a new LG phone dubbed Viewty GT. By the looks of it, this is the LG GT405, showcased by LG back in March.
The Viewty GT features a 3 inch resistive touchscreen display with 240 x 400 pixels, 3G connectivity, A-GPS, Google Maps, Bluetooth, music player, Facebook access, 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 60MB of internal memory and MicroSD card support.
Since it’s offered via 3, the LG Viewty GT also comes with Windows Live Messenger and Skype preinstalled (for Skype-to-Skype calls).
You can get the LG Viewty GT from 3 UK for free, if you’re willing to sign an 18-month contract agreement of at least £15 per month.The phone is also available on PAYG for £119.99.
Via Omio, Phone Arena
Unlike other manufacturers (i.e. HTC or Samsung), Motorola has posted a timeline with details on future software upgrades for its Android smartpohnes.
As you may already know, Android 2.1 updates for the Verizon Droid and for the Milestone are already rolling out.
Next, Motorola is planning to bring Android 2.1 to the Cliq and Cliq XT, sometime this quarter (meaning in June the latest).
In Q3, the Motorola BackFlip (for AT&T) and the Motorola Dext (for Asia-Pacific) will also be upgraded to Android 2.1.
Upgrades for the Motorola Devour (pictured above) and the Dext for Europe and Latin America are currently under evaluation.
Via Motorola
